It could be a bios setting as well. Turn off any force updates from your BIOS and also enable plug and play OS on it as well. This will force it to NOT try to install it before the OS does.
Also, Fedora Core 2 is buggy and has been having MAJOR problems with dual booting. In fact, many people cannot even get any OS to boot after installing FC2 and have had all the hassle of salvaging their windows install. I'd try something else.
Gentoo is a cool distro but it is hard to install. I also like Debian but it is the same as Gentoo. Currently, I run a dual booted MEPIS Linux/ Windows XP box. Love it. MEPIS is based exclusively on debian linux and can use debian linux files. It's also a LiveCD so you can boot up off of it and 'try before you buy'. It also installs in 7 mouse clicks....Hands down better than FC2